Many devices have been proposed through the years as improvements upon, or alternatives to, smoking products that require combusting tobacco for use. Many of those devices purportedly have been designed to provide the sensations associated with cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoking, but without delivering considerable quantities of incomplete combustion and pyrolysis products that result from the burning of tobacco. To this end, there have been proposed numerous alternative smoking products, flavor generators, and medicinal inhalers that utilize electrical energy to vaporize or heat a volatile material, or attempt to provide the sensations of cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoking without burning tobacco to a significant degree. See, for example, the various alternative smoking articles, aerosol delivery devices and heat generating sources set forth in the background art described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,881,737 to Collett et al., U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2013/0255702 to Griffith Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2014/0000638 to Sebastian et al., U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2014/0096781 to Sears et al., U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2014/0096782 to Ampolini et al., U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2015/0059780 to Davis et al., and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/222,615 to Watson et al., filed Jul. 28, 2016, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. See also, for example, the various implementations of products and heating configurations described in the background sections of U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,594 to Counts et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 8,079,371 to Robinson et al., which are incorporated by reference.
Various implementations of aerosol delivery devices employ an atomizer to produce an aerosol from an aerosol precursor composition. Such atomizers often employ direct resistive heating to produce heat. In this regard, atomizers may include a heating element comprising a coil or other member that produces heat via the electrical resistance associated with the material through which an electrical current is directed. Electrical current is typically directed through the heating element via direct electrical connections such as wires or connectors. However, forming such electrical connections may complicate assembly of the aerosol delivery device and add potential points of failure. Further, in some implementations, the aerosol delivery device may include a control body, which may include a power source, and a cartridge, which may include the atomizer. In these implementations electrical connections between the cartridge and the control body may be required, which may further complicate the design of the aerosol delivery device. Thus, advances with respect to aerosol delivery devices may be desirable.